My friend and former Do Good Well blogger, Nathaniel Whittemore, has added a great post over at Change.org, “How Your Leader’s Expertise Can Become your Company’s Biggest Weakness.” The gist is that there is a changing nature of leaders in organization. Success is dependent upon humble leaders, both self-starters and experts at delegating. Through his experience leading the Global Engagement Summit, Whittemore explains that when you let the reins loose, often the team can create more than a leader could conjure on her own:

The lesson for leaders is to think soberly and humbly about the nature of the commitments they have to their organizations. Every leader’s arrangement is different, but to execute specific tasks as well as to coordinate the work of others requires investing a large amount in the leadership of others. What’s more, I think the lesson is for leaders to think about how they arrange support around themselves that’s related to their expertise, even if that feels counter intuitive when they’re trying to save resources for elsewhere.

An entrepreneurship professor of mine echoes this notion, coining the term “vulnerable leadership.” He argues that a leader must be able to strategically let down their guard to give space for the rest of the team to advance. I prefer to call it “Socratic Leadership.” While the leader may have most of the answers, as Whittemore suggests, it is his role to socratically advance the dialogue amongst the team. By suspending judgment and comment, the Socratic leader enables team engagment, conducts ideas as a conversation, and collectively creates innovative answers.  When success is increasingly determined by an organization or team’s ability to execute on brilliant ideas, the role of the leader necessarily morphs to support the whole.

via Flikr

John Gerzema TEDx: Empowering consumers

The recession has changed consumer behavior. While personal savings may have fallen in the past 20 years, consumer voices have risen. New methods of organizing both online and offline may give consumers power to dictate the next steps in our economy.

Good: A Design For the Rest of Us.

Good design is not only a must for conveying a message, it is also a force to transform the world. This interview with Warren Berger the author of Glimmer gives insight on how use design problem solving for issues outside of design.

Planet Green: Green Materials Guide

Employ that design thinking and start building with green materials. This guide to green materials is must see for those about to undertake their next building project.

Story telling is the centerpiece of building communities. Last week leaders in business, media, policy, and education gathered at BIF5, to tell stories. I had to ask myself, why would impact oriented individuals be willing to give up two days to simply tell stories. Stories are not quantifiable, they are not deliverables to file away in work reports. So whats the big deal about stories? Well for one they inspire thought provoking dialogue and innovation. This is especially true at BIF5 where stories are not about historical accomplishments, but rather future projections.

Don Tapscott, author of Grown Up Digital and Wikinomics took the stage late morning. He connected to the audience with a story about how his children, more then his colleagues taught him  about technology and innovation. For the first time in history, a younger generation are the experts on technology. However, I believe that this may be shifting. Social Media may have started in college communities, but in my experience students have been slow to use these tools effectively.

However work isn’t just being redefined by a generation, it is being formed by everyone. Helmut Traitler from Netsle shared his latest challenge: develop an ice-cream that ships warm. But his R&D team has decided to open this challenge to the world. While his incentives may be purely profit driven (no more expensive freezer trucks), engineers are fascinated by the potential to make serious global supply chain energy savings. A win-win.

While the speakers inspired thought, the room was “atwitter” in dialogue. The innovation editor at Business Week argued that no one knows how to use social media, that we are all figuring it out. I am continually amazed at how social media changes an event space. I met five new people during the talk, and met up with two in the break time. Would we have run into each other had we not been telling our own stories about Traitler’s via Twitter? Only maybe.

What do all these stories have in common? Continue learning, discover new possibilities, find ways to collaboration, make the world better. Perhaps we can take a hint from BIF5 and pre-schools around the world – take a time out for story time.

A cell tower in Kumai, Ghana via Flikr

Two way communication died months ago. This weekend at the Better World by Design conference at RISD/Brown thought leaders in design, engineering, and appropriate technology collaborated on group projects and shared significant developments since convening last year. I was particularly delighted to see Ken Banks from Kiwanja / FrontlineSMS. His open software has enabled health clinics, farmers, and merchants  better track patient health, harvest growth, and sales in developing countries. A number of his constituent projects have received significant funding to scale successful projects to new countries.

The opportunity for cell-phones to change the world has  recurred throughout mainstream media in recent months. Yesterday the New York Times reported that texting in east and central Africa has enabled farmers to increase their livelihoods. Farmers receive texts about incoming disease strains, volatile pricing, and weather patterns. Farmers in rural areas are connected to urban centers where markets and commodity brokers influence prices. This urban, rural dialogue is changing farmers behavior and their access to global markets. This a contributing factor to Africa’s cell-phone boom, the largest growth sector in the mobile industry.

Access to global communication systems is changing the power dynamics and relationships between producers, manufacturers, and consumers. Working with Runa, a sustainable amazonian beverage company, my team was contacted by Ecuadorian indigenous farmers by e-mail before we had done first site visit. Having seen our  website (shoddy at best), they expressed interest in working together.

At what other point in history have rural areas had such sophisticated knowledge sharing tools to improve their livelihoods? How does this effect education and training for both knowledge and labor economies. When else in history have producers had the ability to access global networks of consumers so directly? What implications does this have for our conceptions of global trade?

Flashmobs, Tweetups, and Pecha Kuchas are evidence that we live in an increasingly connected (and jargony) world. These gatherings allow for new forms of interaction and have profound meaning for both global and local civil society. Tonight I attended Providence’s 7th Pecha Kucha – a global monthly event where a handful of presenters are given 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide to share a new idea, design, business, or research – and was wowed to see democracy in action.

We were greeted by Pecha Kucha Worchester over YouTube and then heard talks by social entrepreneurs, doctors, politicians, students, and business leaders. We heard ideas on new medical devices, conspiracy theories, and movements to overcome poverty, but it was not the presentations that made the events, it was the audience. In the crowd included Mayor Cicellini, Senator Chaffee, professors from Brown and RISD, the executive director of AS220, the CEO of Ximedica, students, artists, citizens and so on… all meeting at a bar… to listen, learn, and share… on a Wednesday night. Is this actually the 21st century or just another town meeting like the founders envisioned?

Pecha Kucha uses a global identity to empower local communities, uniting their citizens. On the contrary, many city events attract only niche crowd: the symphony, an avant-garde art opening, a conference for government workers. Sounds like preaching to the choir. My previous post explored the importance of unlikely allies, but it can be so hard to meet these allies when we work in silos then return home right from work.

In what spaces do you meet new allies? What facilitates the introduction?

Lets face it, we live in an interdependent society. The greatest leaders in government, business, and non-profit sectors accomplish great tasks through teamwork, partnership, and collaboration.

This evening I arranged an event at a tea house in San Francisco with my business partners from Runa and our cultural director of the foundation. It was a gathering of friends, family, investors, burners, and tea enthusiasts. Most you would more likely  find in a café with hot espresso drinks , others in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and some in leading non-profits – well maybe thats not quite so different.

Flavio, our cultural director, used this unique setting to share myths that none of the audience could have predicted. His creative story telling was a vehicle to unite people from diverse backgrounds and opinions.  Earlier that day he had shared the same stories in Silicon Valley – far from his home in the Amazon – capturing the minds of academics, “geeks” and innovators.

Speaking many languages and knowing how to listen to different audiences is essential to building dynamic supporters. And don’t forget to bring a translator if your director doesn’t speak English.

Engaged story telling has enabled my partners and I to form unlikely allies.  Cross-sector connections have enabled us to think outside the box, better yet, to think big. I like to believe that if you build unlikely allies you will likely be successful in your endeavors to do good.

We are all indebted to the late Les Paul who passed last week at the age of ninety-four. A musician, inventor and entrepreneur, Paul’s legacy is definitive to American culture and the world of recorded music. As Paul said in his last interview with the New York Times, he was “born with all these things yet to do that haven’t been done.”

His secret: living in the present.

Paul was the inventor of one of the 20^th centuries greatest disruptive technologies. While playing guitar in a house band, he was too quiet and left out of the mix. Unheard, he was inspired to tear apart some electronics and invent the solid body electric guitar and then the 8-track recorder. Without his guitar or multitask recoreder we wouldn’t have The Beatles, Beastie Boys or Bjorke. We wouldn’t have the CD, MP3, or iPod for that matter.

Multitrack recording has given global musicians a new voice and entrepreneurial spirit. Paul Simon’s Graceland first opened the west to the sounds of South Africa, bringing together dozens of. More recently The Very Best and MIA have shared a new melange of world music, hip hop, and dance music embedded with deep social messages.

Changing the world of music, Paul made a small fortune. With his early financial success Paul retired to a life with his family. But like the Entrepreneurs in “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good,” Paul would not settle on a single success, he heard sounds yet to be made.

Restless, Paul divorced, went back to the studio, won a Grammy, patented 20 new inventions, and eventually ended up in Manhattan to play a weekly gig until his last days. Each success was built on his desire to make the best sounds and to be the loudest, but not necessarily heard by the most people.

Paul played for himself and the few friends that cared the most. He chose to played small clubs where “no ones going to pick on me cause I’m nobody.” His journey through life was a strict passion for creating in the present, not worrying about a legacy or long term return. But we have much to owe in return for his passion and for the guitar that changed the world.

(At the very least, if it weren’t for Les Paul, we would not have shared the awkward middle school last dance to Stairway to Heaven  – recorded on tape through Jimmy Page’s custom Gibson Les Paul).

Providence's Waterfire (Source: hottbucks on flickr)

Providence: The Creative Capital: Providence Rhode Island has recently rebranded itself as the Creative Capital. This post on Social Entrepreneurship in the country’s smallest state advocates the “small is beautiful” theory. The post highlights a few of the blossoming projects in this innovation mecca.

Art And Copy: “I think creativity can solve anything” - Art And Copy is a groundbreaking documentary on the power of creativity in the advertising industry. This trailer features leaders in the field engaging in provoking dialogue on creativity, manipulation, and possibility.

Burn On the Bayou: Burn on the Bayou is an unlikely film about an unlikely collaboration. Attendees of the illustrious Burning Man festival gathered their creative pursuits to rebuild New Orleans. A great story about releasing the potential of one affinity group to help another while enacting change and inspiring thousands.

“Snatching Digital Rights” or Protecting Our Culture?: Gearing up for the Burning Man Festival in Black Rock City Nevada, this post argues that restricted creative liscensing facilitates greater creativity rather than inhibiting it.

Carrots For Corporate Social Responsibility?

There is a business motto saying ‘the customer is always right.’ That is of course unless they are left.

Whole Foods founder John Mackey recently published his personal  recommendation for health care reform in the Wall Street Journal – bad timing in a hot debate and bad economy. Not every Whole Foods consumer sides with Mackey’s politics. Although Whole Foods claims that his views do not represent those of the firm, his remarks have turned into a PR nightmare. The Economist reports that over 13,000 loyal Whole Foods consumers are boycotting the natural foods giants.

Mackey should have considered his customers before raising his voice amongest a heated political debate – it especially does not help to more or less blame Americans for being overweight. Many of his personal politics do not align with his liberal consumers, a large portion of the Whole Foods demographic. In hindsight his blunder is an obvious neglect of consumer of loyalty. But Mackey surely knew better – at least according to the Whole Foods website.

“His business philosophy is to act with care and responsibility toward all of the various stakeholder groups of the Company and to operate Whole Foods Market with social and environmental responsibility”

Mackey is entitled to his personal opinions, but in abusing his podium he has upset multiple stakeholders with different social views. Long known as an advocate the democratic powers of a dollar, Mackey’s consumers are using his principals against him, literally ‘biting the hand that feeds.’

Consumer boycotts are not a new phenomenon, but online organizing has made boycotts more prominent and powerful. Change.org blogger Michael Jones recently exposed Tim Horton’s sponsorship of Natinoal Organization for Marriage and has called for a boycott. Jones and Rattray from Change.org effectively used this same tactic against Rockstar Energy Drink, producing a $100,000 charitable donation to LGBTQ groups.

Corporate social responsibility is not an option when consumers have the power to keep corporations responsible. Better branding will not fix this PR problem. Vertical marketing can no longer supplant the horizontal distribution of social media. If the internet is a platform to organize thousands of people in “flashmobs” just for fun, businesses should be increasingly worried about consumer mobs. But contrary to The Economist’s advice silence is not the only option. New platforms have enabled corporations to take proactive steps towards more responsible business. For example, Virgance’s Carrotmob, a network of consumers who organize recognize and reward socially responsible firms with “mob” business. Whole Foods might take a hint.

Actions may speak louder than words, but in Mackey’s case,  words inspired action – against him and his company. Whole Foods may be first and foremost responsible to its shareholders, but its leaders best be aware of millions of powerful stakeholders.

Could it be that left or right the consumer wields the power?

Life in a Refugee Camp by UNHCR. Eritrean refugees in Shimelba refugee camp, Ethiopia via flikr UNHCR / F. Courbet

I am excited by a recent  film release, which affirms my belief that small is beautiful, that local communities can mobilize to support each other. Last night “Home Across Lands” opened at the RI international film festival. This magnificent piece  documents the global trek from an Eritrean refugee camp in Ethiopia to an immigrant community in Providence, RI. From where “life is on hold” to a  where the future may look better than the past. In their disrupted homes, these refugees are dependent upon outside aid. Although RI is amidst a serious budget crises, the union’s smallest state is an exemplary case of a local communities ability to create opportunity.

The film embodies the essence of global citizenship through local collaboration. It brings together ambassadors, senators, local politicians, and nonprofit leaders to make a case for immigrant communities, specifically advocating for the dignified vision of these Eritrean refugees. In few other states, let alone nations, can a local film company bring together diverse actors to promote the freedoms of people half way around the globe. Transition is far from easy, but given community support through the International Institute of RI there is hope to build new lives in this small but tight-knit state.

After checking out the trailer here, I encourage looking at a January article in Newsweek about how one immigrant family in Lewiston, Maine has catalyzed transformative change to rebuild the once downtrodden streets of Lewiston.